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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Getting Started With The Solar Bathroom

If anyone tells you it is easy to strip an old water heater, they just lied to you.

I got started on the outdoor shower and the first thing I chose to do was to get the tank ready. I took an old water heater and stripped it down to the bare metal tank. The foam was a challenge to get off because it was glued to the metal so I used a sawzall with a long flexible blade to cut big chunks out of it and then came back with the saw again and ran it all over the tank taking off any that was left.

The youngest girl took 60 grit sandpaper and a palm sander and really shined it up for the final step of painting it all black.

This tank will go into a insulated wood box with a glass top tilted at a 30 degree angle to the sun.

My next step is to start on the main structure itself. When completed it will have a bathtub, shower, sink, with cold and hot running water and a composting toilet.
This my friends will be a real mans bathroom.

ATH - Thanks buddy. I just know this last summer when the well was out, it was a pain in the butt to fill my solar water bags and hang them in the shower. Plus having to fill the toilet tanks up every time was too much. This will eliminate all that.

G - Thanks you, I am not in a real big hurry on this one but it does need to be functional before next summer. With my OCD and ADD, I should have it done......

i can't believe that people are telling you that this is a dumb idea - this is an awesome idea and i can't wait for jambaloney to see your posts. back in the city we were getting around to making a solar shower - but circumstances prevented us from finishing it. but a solar bathroom? AWESOME my friend - plain awesome!

kymber - The folks that come over that I call family and friends don't get me. They do not see a need in storing food or building things to use when there is no longer electricity. I get criticized from the type of goats I raise to the type of fence I build. You should have heard what they said about my cold smoker I built. I am used to it, but when I am cooking and have beer, they still want to come over.

MDR,My next major project is going to be a solar hot water tank/system. Here in Florida and electric hot water heating it's crazy not to have one. If you don't mind I would appreciate some details as you progress with your system!

Mike - Will do buddy. I have not added many details because nobody has asked yet and did not want to bore people, so thank you. I will do my best on the details and if you have any questions on what I did not get detailed enough on, just ask. I have been researching this for over a year now and if it's not right, then there are a lot of people out there that did it wrong as well.